Birds of Asia: Illustrations from the Lithographs of John Gould

Description

321pp. including 160 pages of colour plates, grey cloth boards stamped in gilt on the spine.

John Gould (1804-1881) was one of the most influential British ornithologists of the period.
A noted collector, and the author of many books and nearly 300 articles for scientific journals, he also illustrated no fewer than 41 folio volumes. His wife, until her death in 1841, was responsible for the technical side of the lithographic process and a handful of plates were done by other artists, including Edward Lear and Joseph Wolf.
The ‘Birds of Asia’ was, in fact, published posthumously, in 1886, having been completed by R. Bowdler Sharpe. The present volume reproduces 160 of the plates that first appeared in his The Birds of Asia’. The text for each illustration incorporates all new findings that have come to light since Gould’s day.
The modern text for this edition of Birds of Asia’ has been written by Abram Rutgers, and it demonstrates just how accurate were John Gould’s illustrations – despite the general lack of ornithological knowledge in the mid-19th century.